


three days in december

by stonefrog



Category: Hand Aufs Herz | Hand Over Heart
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonefrog/pseuds/stonefrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the course of three years, a lot can change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three days in december

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from my lifejournal
> 
> Disclaimer: Some of the characters do not belong to me

##### December 24th 2009

Christine Hartmann watched her husband with a feeling of apprehension. They had set up a christmas tree, decorated the house and now they were waiting for their daughter Jenny to appear for their traditional Christmas dinner. Even though they had lived all over the world, they tried to keep a few german traditions alive in their family and that included Christmas Dinner and presents on Christmas Eve.

But Jenny had made clear that she did not care for their family events anymore. She was, as much as it hurt Christine, out of control. She had left the house earlier that day without so much of a word and Christine was not sure if Jenny would be back for dinner.

Rolf poured himself a second glass of scotch while he tapped an irate rhythm on the table. Christine laid her hand on top of his and squeezed it to calm him.

##### August 26th 2009

Christine laid her hand on top of his and squeezed it to calm him but Rolf Hartmann was fuming. They had just come back from a business trip to New York and their house was a mess. In the front yard was their leather sofa, it looked like someone might have thrown it of the balcony. A young man none of them had seen before was lying on what was left of the couch, sleeping with his mouth agape. The wet stain on his T-Shirt was a bright pink.

They slowly made their way inside the house. More people were lying around between lost clothing and broken glas, most of them seemed no older than maybe twenty. It smelled of booze and smoke. There was a puddle of something Christine didn’t really want to identify next to the big indoor palm tree and the stereo emitted static noise.

Rolf took a few steps to see that his house bar was completely empty, his collection of old whiskey gone. She looked at him as she went over to their big dinner table. A small razor blade lay next to a small heap of white pulver and some rolled up £50 bills. Through the large window she could see someone drifting on an air mattress in their swimming pool in the back yard.

“I want all of you gone! Anyone who is still here in two minutes can spend the rest of the day at the police station!” Rolf’s loud voice made her jump. Slowly some life returned to the drooping figures in the room. They shuffled out the door under a cacophony of groans and verbal abuse.

Christine slowly made her way upstairs. There was music drifting from Jennys room, a loud and angry rhythm. Bloody footprints led to the bathroom, someone had washed his cut foot at the tub, it seemed.

As Christine came closer to her daughter’s door she could feel the small hairs on the back of her neck stand. She wasn’t sure what was waiting for her behind that door. She had found Jenny drunk or drugged far too many times in the last months.

She decided not to knock and just opened the door. Jenny was in bed with a naked girl. She had short dark hair and her head rested on Jennys naked breasts. The two girls jumped, when Christine opened the door. “Fuck! What are you doing here?! Get the fuck out of my room!!” Jenny’s words were slurred.

“Get dressed and then come downstairs.” Christine tried to stay calm, almost icy, as she closed the door, but her voice quivered just a bit.

\- - -

The following fight was terrible. Jenny was completely disrespectful, the girl that had been in her room, Luka, as they later learned, provoked Rolf and Christine just for her amusement and at the end, both girls left the house screaming obscenities.

They hadn’t seen Jenny for more than a week afterwards. When she came back, she was seldom seen without Luka, who seemed to have a bad influence on Jenny. The girls went clubbing for days on end, coming home high, drunk and broke.

Christine tried her best to talk some sense into Jenny, but she didn’t reach her. Rolf put the blame on Luka, he couldn’t grasp that his daughter had decided for herself to lead this lifestyle. It wasn’t that Luka was a girl, Jenny had brought home girls earlier, but Luka was obnoxious in her behavior towards Jenny’s parents and manipulating Jenny to her advantage.

Jenny’s monthly allowance was usually spent in the first week of the month, so she used her father’s credit cards or stole money from Christine’s wallet to buy pills or coke for herself and her girlfriend.

The Hartmanns fought a lot these days, not only with Jenny but with each other as well, as they grew more and more stressed and worn out.

##### December 24th 2009

It was almost ten o'clock when Jenny and Luka finally showed up. Dinner was already cold and Rolf had had one too many glasses of whiskey.

Luka headed straight for the christmas tree to pick up some of the presents and ripping them open one by one, scrutinizing its contents. “Hey, this is nice.” She pocketed a necklace Rolf had bought for his wife and threw a gift at Jenny. “Here’s that’s yours, with love from Mommy and Daddy!”, she sneered.

Jenny who had picked up some bottles, caught the present and turned to her parents who were somewhat speechless by the spectacle. “Merry Christmas. We’re almost gone, so you can go back to... whatever...” She blew them a sloppy kiss and was just about to leave the room with Luka in tow, when Rolf finally spoke.

“You will put the necklace back and then you will leave our home. I don’t want to see you around our daughter ever again! Jennifer, sit down!” Luka just smirked at him, flipped them the bird, and threw the necklace at Rolf. Then she grabbed Jenny’s hand and pulled her out of the room.

“Come on, we're not wanted here. Let’s go to Jimmy’s, word is he has some good stuff from Carlos.

Jenny let herself be pulled and giggled drunkenly. “See you.”

##### December 25th 2010

It almost felt like a tribunal, the way Jenny sat opposite her parents at the decorated table. After last year’s disaster, this time the holiday spirit had been rather subdued. Rolf watched his daughter's face. She didn’t know what to expect when he had asked her to sit down with them for a moment.

He was anxious as well. But if he was honest with himself, he didn’t see another way to make sure that his little girl stayed away from that poison. Here in London she would relapse again, he was sure.

She looked healthier than she had for a long time after her return from Ireland, fit and tanned. But Christine had seen Luka hanging around their old places and if Rolf was honest with himself, he didn’t trust Jenny enough to let her stay here, where she could meet her old gang almost every minute, not after everything that had happened. So he and Christine had found a place for Jenny in a safer environment. An old friend in cologne had offered to take her in for the time it took her to finish school. He had a son her age, so she would go to his school.

Rolf could tell that his daughter was nervous, the way she fidgeted with the tablecloth Christine had inherited from her grandmother. He smiled at her, trying to set her at ease. He could feel Christine's hand in his, pressing it softly.

##### June, 25th 2010

He could feel Christine’s hand in his, pressing it softly, as if she sought strength. He looked at her and saw his own pain and worry in her eyes.

They had just arrived at Heathrow when they got a call from one doctor Parinda Vasa at King’s College hospital, informing them that their daughter had overdosed on cocaine and was now treated in their emergency department.

Jenny was deadly pale. She look tiny in her hospital bed with the tubes and monitoring cables connected to her body. At first, just for the fraction of a second, he hadn’t recognized the broken body as his daughter but it was his little girl, his Jenny.

“She is sleeping now, she is pretty exhausted. It looked bad for a while, but she is stable for now.” Doctor Vasa, a petite indian woman of maybe thirty, had approached them and now shook their hands. “She was brought in about four hours ago. Her heart had stopped on the ambulance, but they got her back, and here we were able to stabilize her. Sorry that we didn’t inform you earlier but your mobile was off?”

Rolf told her that they had just arrived back in town from a business trip to Abu Dhabi. They had talked to Jenny shortly on the phone four or five days ago, but that had been the nowadays typical angry argument. Jenny had wanted more money and Rolf had denied her, because he knew she would only buy drugs for her and that girl.

“Do you know who called the ambulance?” he asked. Christine looked at him, she knew, what he was getting at. “Oh, I don’t know, but I can ask, if you want me to.”

A few minutes later, Rolf and Christine had been told that the ambulance had been called anonymously but there was little doubt who it had been. Rolf was about to call an old friend, who would find that girl and... Christine’s hand on his arm interrupted his thoughts. She looked at him and shook her head. “Don’t. Jenny needs us now.” He smiled weakly at his wife and they returned to their daughter’s bedside.

Rolf took Jenny’s cold hand in his and held it for a long time, he tried to warm it, to share some of his strength with his little girl and found a little comfort in listening to the monotonous beep of the machine and her shallow but even breathing. Christine went and got them some tea and then sat at the other side of Jenny’s bed, taking her other hand.

He could see the silent tears that rolled down his wife's cheek but he could not release Jenny’s hand to wipe them away as she might slip away from them if he let go. He called Christine's name, so quietly that she almost didn’t catch it. They locked eyes, each silently whispering their own promises of what they would do if they could only keep their child.

After long hours, Jenny finally opened her eyes. Her voice was hoarse, but she managed a few words. “Papa, Mama? I’m so sorry...”

\- - -

It had taken Jenny some time to gather back her strength and the withdrawal from the drugs was hard on all of them. But the seriousness of her situation seemed have been a wake up call. She broke contact to Luka and her other friends in the scene.

Rolf insisted that she’d have to go a rehab centre in Ireland he had heard of from one of his colleagues who had been through a similar story with his son. Jenny had cried, pleaded and even begged him on her knees to let her stay with them, that she needn’t go to rehab, that she would stay clean on her own, but Rolf had been persistent.

##### December 25th 2010

Jenny looked expectantly at her parents. “You wanted to talk?” she asked.

“Yes. Jenny, you know that your mother and I are very proud of you, how you handled the rehab?”

Jenny smiled. She seemed to know that she couldn’t have done it without the support of her parents. But nonetheless she herself was happy that she had been able to kick her drug habit.

“We are worried that here in London the temptation to take drugs again might be too strong, though. But my friend Stefan from Cologne offered to take you in for a while.” Rolf tried to look encouraging but Jenny lost her smile as he spoke.

“What? You are sending me away?! You can’t be serious!”

“Darling. It’s what’s best for you. Here you could meet that girl around town by chance or...”

“You mean Luka?” Jenny interrupted him. Her relationship with Luka had been a sore point between the two of them ever since Jenny’s rehab. Even though Jenny had cut the contact she was adamant that her overdose wasn’t Luka’s fault. “I haven’t seen her since June and you know that!”

“You will go to school with his son Ben, he is about your age and will be in your class. You can make your Abitur and return to England for University.”

“I can do my A levels here at school!”

“Jenny... We know that this is hard, that it even seems unfair, but it’s for your best, darling.”

“You don’t want me around, do you?” Rolf could see that Jenny was fighting tears. She had had a hard time showing her emotions to anyone for a long time. He suspected it had to do with her career as Little Heart, she had been forced to grow up quite fast. He quickly stood and stepped over to her to gather her in his arms.

Jenny fought him for a moment but then she hugged him back fiercely. “I love you, Jenny, we both do very deeply. But we are afraid that we might lose you to that poison for real if you stay here. Do you understand?” Rolf whispered. He could feel Jenny nod against his shoulder hesitantly. “It is only for a year, until you finish school. And we will visit and you can come over during the holidays. It’s no punishment, don’t ever think that. It’s a chance.”

Jenny stayed in his arms for a long while, then she finally looked him in the eyes and nodded once. “Okay.”

##### December 26th 2011

Kathrin Müller smiled as she observed the happy buzzing in their living room. Family holidays like Christmas were really the only opportunity to get them all together now the kids grew up.

Her oldest, Lena, was reading a book on babies she had gotten from her brother Ole on Christmas Eve. Kathrin found it hard to believe that she was going to be a grandmother so soon, as Lena was only 23. But then, Lena herself had been born when Kathrin was 26 and Christian, her husband, only 24.

Lena’s fiance Jannik was playing cards with her youngest, Ole. It looked like Ole, even though he had only turned seven three weeks ago, was winning most of the rounds.

As if he had felt his mother’s gaze on him, the towheaded boy turned at the moment and smiled a gap-toothed smile at her. He was a charmer like his dad. Kathrin snuggled closer to her husband, basking in the warmth of his body.

After the birth of their older son Daniel they hadn’t wanted any more children, but when Ole announced himself almost ten years later, they had decided that one more would fit into their home just as well. And the older kids had agreed after some discussion that a little brother or sister would be “kinda cool” as Daniel had put it.

Daniel was busy twiddling with his new phone. She was rather certain that he was texting with his girlfriend, who was visiting with her grandparents. He was at her house most of the time now and was experiencing serious withdrawal it seemed. Young love... Kathrin felt just a bit envious and smiled.

Her gaze came to rest on the pair on the small couch. Emma and her girlfriend Jenny had put their heads together and were talking quietly. She smiled when she saw the dimple on Jennys cheek appear at something Emma had said. Jenny leant in to drop a small kiss on Emma’s cheek. Kathrin chuckled when she saw the tips of her daughter’s ears turn red.

The two of them would finish school in a few short months and were busy planning where to go to university afterwards. After the death of her parents earlier this year Jenny had spent a lot of time in the Müller household, so Kathrin felt as if she were to lose not one but two daughters to adulthood.

Christian took her hand and pressed it softly.

##### April 28th 2011

Christian took her hand and pressed it softly to calm his wife. Kathrin looked at her husband and smiled a worried smile. As parents of four they were used to trouble and at the moment it was their second oldest, Emma, who was the cause of their worry.

Emma had always been the quietest of their children, but at the moment, she was really timid and withdrawn.

First her best friend Hotte had left Cologne to go to school in Las Vegas. Hotte had always been Emma's confidante ever since Kindergarten and so his leaving had been hard on her. Especially as she had never been as popular with her peers as Lena or Daniel.

And then there had been that horrible accident that killed two of her teachers. Even after the bruises she had suffered had vanished, she barely smiled or even talked to them.

In fact, she even had stayed the first night after the accident with a friend none of them had met. But now, Emma wanted to talk to them, she had said.

Her daughter looked terribly nervous when she sat down with them in the living room couch. They had sent Ole outside to play, so they were alone in the house.

“Mami, Papi? I...oh, this is difficult. I... I know that you have been worried, that I have been... you know, strange or... quiet, lately and it’s not because of the accident. But maybe it is, too, I don’t really know. Um... that was really hard and it hurt, you know? Not the bruises, okay, that hurt too, but the accident and the way I behaved there. I couldn’t move, did I tell you? I think I didn’t, did I? All these people, my friends, were hurt and I could simply not move, not help them. I don’t know why. Jenny says I was in shock, maybe she is right, but that’s not really an excuse, is it?”

“Emma, honey, calm down.” Kathrin smiled at her daughter who had always been prone to rambling when she was nervous. Her mind went a hundred miles an hour then and her mouth tried hard to keep up.

Emma stopped talking for a moment and again nervously bit her lip.

“I didn’t even want to talk about the accident with you”, she said.

“Honey you know that you can talk to us about anything?” her father asked. His deep voice seemed to calm Emma, who nodded. “So, what is on your heart?”

“I...Oh dammit, why is this so hard? Sorry.” She excused herself as her father's eyebrows had furrowed at her swearing. Then she seemed to gather all her courage, looked at them earnestly and spoke.

"I'm in love."

Kathrin smiled. "That's great, honey, isn't it?" She worried for a moment that Emma was in love with Dennis, who was far away in the US, that that was the cause of her behaviour.

But Emma's sudden smile lightened the whole room, like her father's would do on occasion. "Yeah, it is. But there's something I need you to know. I'm in love with Jenny. And she is in love with me."

"Oh", Kathrin's smile suddenly faltered. She didn't know what to say. Christian had suggested a while ago that their Emma might possibly be into girls but she always had pushed the possibility far away.

"Mami?"

"That's great, Emma. So, when will we meet her?" Christian smiled at his daughter while placing a comforting hand on his wife's forearm.

\- - -

It took Kathrin some time to come to terms with Emma's relationship with Jenny, especially when she heard that some of their fellow students had harassed the girls. She had never wanted any of their kids to suffer under the intolerance of others and Emma always had been the sensitive one.

But there was no room to doubt the love between the two girls. And Kathrin really liked the influence Jenny seemed to have on Emma who grew more confident and courageous. Jenny soon found a spot in the Müller family. The boys accepted her as a buddy almost immediately and when Jenny’s parents died so horribly, they all did their best to comfort her and give her a home.

##### December 26th 2011

Kathrin squeezed her husbands hand and returned his warm smile.

“So, who wants Stollen?” 


End file.
